Fire was used as an important factor to encourage communication in old days such as open hearth or hibachi brazier around which family members used to have meals in old-fashioned Japanese houses and open fire around which people gather to talk. On the other hand, fireplace is still used generally in Europe and North America not only as a heating system but also as an interior accessory to make the room more attractive. In this study, two conditions such as with-fireplace and without-fireplace were compared to examine the fireplace's effects on human intimacy and communications. One undergraduate female student and one housewife (30 participants in total) at first sight were paired and asked to talk for 50 minutes in both of two conditions and they were observed. The sensations showed that the participants felt more relaxed, comforted, familiar and felt that the talking partner looked alike to themselves in with-fireplace condition compared to without-fireplace. The results of observation showed that the distance between the two participants came closer, nodding times got increased, and conversation gap time was shorter in with-fireplace condition. These results indicate that the fire has curing effect like watching river or clouds.

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In order to promote more pro-environmental behavior, it is important to understand its underlying attitudinal factors. In this study, a Japanese version of the Environmental Appraisal Inventory (EAI) was constructed, and its structure was examined. The EAI is based on a straightforward psychological stress model which posits that threat leads to appraisal, which leads to coping. The Japanese version of the EAI considers 28 hazards, including global change, and 9 appraisal scales. The present results show that the scales are very reliable. A factor analysis revealed three independent factors, representing the EAI's original three scales (threats to self, threats to the environment, and personal control in the face of hazards). The EAI has excellent factorial validity. Multiple regression analysis showed that a fourth scale, called altering lifestyle, which was added in the Japanese version, can be successfully predicted from the EAI's original scales, although the threats to self scale is not a significant predictor of it. The role played by a person's cognitive structuring of environmental hazards in the transition from these attitudes to pro-environmental behavior is discussed.

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Since the late 1970s differences between house (physical places) and home (not only physical places but also the psychological concept having cognitive/affective meanings for owners) have been studied by Western environmental psychologists and human geographers. Those studies have specifically focused on the meanings that make a house his/her home. However, in Japan, although the importance of the concept of home has been well-recognized, it has just been adopted from the Western research without testing its validity for Japanese people and culture. This study qualitatively investigated meanings of home for Japanese participants by means of an open-ended question where 'wagaya' was used as the Japanese counterpart of Western 'home'. The influence of family types on meanings of home was also examined. Results showed that 1) some meanings that had been frequently shown in the Western literature rarely appeared in Japanese data, 2) some Japanese participants indicated negative meanings of home, which has seldom been suggested in Western home studies, 3) many Japanese participants mentioned restoration as a meaning of their homes, and 4) family types influenced the meanings of home for the family members.

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In this paper, the authors introduce the methods of reminiscence review in order to deal with the meaning for the elderly of talking about their own experiences in and knowledge of their familiar local environment. The paper focuses on how and what they talk about their local environment to an interviewer in the reminiscence review session. In typical reminiscence review sessions with photographs, either photographs from ethnological records or of typical life events in the past have been broadly used. On the other hand, it is said in the literature of reminiscence research that the places most appearing in the reminiscence talk in general tends to be those where the subject uses in his/her everyday life (see Kovach, 1991b). In this paper, we actually show the elderly subjects the most recent photographs of places in their local environment where they have long been familiar with in their everyday lives, and analyze the amount and contents of their verbalization triggered by the photographs. As the consequences, we suggest: first, the photographs of places of their everyday local environment, even taken recently, could trigger much verbalization as well. Second, however, it is true only when the subject could identify the place shown in the photographs. Third, the verbalization in this case includes not only reminiscence talk but also address of his/her knowledge about the places. Fourth, the places which are chosen by the subjects for the reminiscence talk seem to be different from those for the knowledge address, and the difference could be shown in their geographical distribution.

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Environmental improvement was verified, which increased the number of tables and sofas for residents to drop in at various places spontaneously in a common space of a nursing home. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between "the rate of dropping-in behavior", which meant how often dropping-in behavior occurred one day, and chosen places, and physical and cognitive impairments. In this study, residents' behavior were observed each one day before and after the environmental improvement in the common space with tables, sofas, restroom and so on. Findings of this study are as follows. 1) Residents who choose sofas many times tend to have the high rate of dropping-in behavior, because sofas are located near the tables and circulation to the restroom. 2) Residents who choose the restroom many times tend to have the low rate of dropping-in behavior, because choosing the restroom often turns going and back there. 3) Residents who have serious physical impairments tend to have the low rate of dropping-in behavior. They must use wheelchair, so that they can't move other places. 4) Cognitive impairments have little effect on the rate of dropping-in behavior. Residents who have serious cognitive impairments can find and choose places located near the circulation to the restroom.

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